It’s official. Instagram has voluntarily ended its Twitter photo integration. As of yesterday, this longstanding user option to tweet about their Instagram photos has ended. The move, however, …

It’s official. Instagram has voluntarily ended its Twitter photo integration. As of yesterday, this longstanding user option to tweet about their Instagram photos has ended.

The move, however, is not altogether unexpected as the rivalry between both social networks is amplifying with each passing week.

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom said Wednesday (according to CNN Money) that the relationship with Twitter is, essentially, no longer needed.

“A handful of months ago, we supported Twitter cards because we had a minimal web presence,” Systrom said. “We’ve since launched several improvements to our website that allow users to directly engage with Instagram content through likes, comments, hashtags and now we believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives.”

Systrom went out of his way to explicitly mention that Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, which closed three months ago, had little to do with the decision. That said, having Facebook (FB) in your corner makes it decidedly less risky to cut back your Twitter exposure.

So… are you disappointed by Instagram’s decision and will it impact your social media engagement on Twitter? Please weigh in on the matter below.

1 comment

Eh, I don't mind this so much. Hopefully there will still be a "share" function that allows you to post on other social networks but I might be thinking too optimistically.

All-in-all, this shouldn't matter much. Twitter also has a photo stream in its core feature list, so it stands to reason that soon they'll launch Instagram-like filters that one could use on their photos before tweeting (like Facebook app does now).

Facebook is still the catch-all social network, so it's good for Instagram to go hold its own as a standalone social spot for photo sharing, filling the void that Flickr left after Yahoo bought it.